Editorial sobre el tema del mes de nov: RADICAL CUTENESS

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Magazine

Imagen de una chica sexy cute con una metralleta — Radical Cuteness
November Editorial
María Muñoz-Martínez

In November, A*DESK launched its public program A*LIVE 2024 on “Radical Cuteness”, exploring how adorability transcends the superficial to address complex themes including manipulation, violence, transgression, exploitation, and sexualization. A concept that combines the cute with deep political critique.

Before the event, we published Cute Culture Conquers the World, a conversation between cultural journalist Panagiotis Koustas and expert Joshua Dale, author of The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness (Routledge, 2017). Dale discusses how the “cute” culture has evolved from the superficial to the subversive, conquering cultural spaces and challenging traditional perceptions. The expert highlights the global influence and psychological power of “cuteness” and analyzes its ability to soften complex discourses.

Núria Gómez Gabriel was the master of ceremonies at A*LIVE 2024: Radical Cuteness, which took place on November 6. Her text The Radicalization of the “Cute” showed us how “cute” is nothing but a disguise laden with power. Drawing from the theories of Sianne Ngai, Gómez Gabriel explores how tenderness, a symbol of innocence and fragility, can be subversive, and how Japanese kawaii culture and phenomena like #sylvaniandrama on TikTok are examples of cultural resistance that challenge gender roles and power structures. Radical Cuteness directly challenges normativity, where vulnerability becomes a strategic weapon, especially in queer and feminist contexts.

The event featured the performative lecture She’s Evil, Most Definitively Subliminal, by Alex Quicho and Noura Tafeche, where “cute” becomes a facade for a dangerous subversion. The artist-researchers explore how adorability infiltrates our minds through subliminal techniques in digital culture, where the seemingly innocent becomes a battleground for seduction and manipulation. Between ideological warfare and personal development, this proposal confronts us with the disturbing reality that the true struggle lies within ourselves.

Mid-month we published the video essay The Power of Cute, about the seductive and sinister nature of “cute”, made by filmmaker Yvonne E. Zhang for Somerset House, London. This video essay features the testimonies of several artists: Ed Fornieles describes it as “a double-edged sword”, capable of both comforting and manipulating; while Rachel Maclean sees tenderness as a biological tool that controls our emotions. Hattie Stewart connects “cute” to the sinister, highlighting cases like the promotion of OxyContin through adorable images, showing its capacity to disguise dangers. Hello Kitty collector Amy-Louise Allen sees her collection as a refuge from instability. Meanwhile, Chris Zhongtian Yuan uses childhood nostalgia to rewrite trauma, and Alake Shilling believes “cute” must be balanced with darkness to resonate. “Cute” is not innocent; it is a language full of power, capable of transforming chaos into tenderness and opening the way for a kinder future.

The last text on Radical Cuteness is Cute and Manes on Hair, by Lucía Moreno, one of the two brilliant and subversive minds behind the event’s visuals, Momu & No Es. In this text, “cute” is revealed as a refuge against patriarchal oppression. Here, “cute capital” becomes a shield against sexualization, a cultural resistance that challenges traditional power structures. In its radical form, “cute” is not just an image; it is a manifesto of resistance for feminist and LGBTQIA+ communities, seeking a space for empowerment and freedom. Even AI, with its limitations and biases, is caught up in this configuration, showing that “cute” can be full of contradictions, but it is precisely in these fissures where its true power lies.

To close this month and almost this dystopian year, we leave you with the video of the Radical Cuteness event held at the Museu de l’art prohibit. Here, the concept of “being cute” unfolds in its highest expression as an act of resistance, a subversive attitude capable of transforming the norm into a liberating movement. “Cute” is no longer just tenderness: it is a declaration of war against everything we consider normative.

(Featured image: anime girl with gun and uniform. Source seaart.ai)

This month's topic

María Muñoz-Martínez is a cultural worker and educator trained in Art History and Telecommunications Engineering, this hybridity is part of her nature. She has taught “Art History of the first half of the 20th century” at ESDI and currently teaches the subject “Art in the global context” in the Master of Cultural Management IL3 at the University of Barcelona. In addition, while living between Berlin and Barcelona, she is a regular contributor to different media, writing about art and culture and emphasising the confluence between art, society/politics and technology. She is passionate about the moving image, electronically generated music and digital media.

Portrait: Sebastian Busse

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